This invention relates to an apparatus and a system for facilitating loading and unloading of packaged or containerized goods to and from cargo spaces utilized by a variety of delivery vehicles.
In today's society, there is wide use of vehicles of various types for loading and shipping goods from one or more locations to a delivery location or locations. The shipping industry has a wide variety of needs relating to loading products into a cargo space and ultimately unloading the product at the desired location. Some product shipments involve merely loading goods of the same type at one location and unloading all the goods at another location. In the trucking industry, this is known as TL (Truckload) trucking. However, other shipping needs, such as over the road trucking and certain local delivery trucking companies, require palletized or containerized products that do not have a truckload of the same products in the same cargo space. Such shipping requirements may require multiple pick ups of various products at various locations with drop offs of the products at multiple destinations. This is known as LTL Trucking (Less Than Truckload). Retailers often need to have loading of the cargo space of a vehicle at one or more locations and require shipping directly to multiple locations, such as grocery stores, businesses, and even households.
Most types of shipping needs are often difficult to be accomplished in an efficient and time effective manner. In the over the road and regional trucking industry, for example, there is a need for improvements in both loading and unloading systems. It is always desired to load and unload cargo to and from the cargo space of a truck in a time effective manner. It is also desirable to provide a system and apparatus for organizing loads for sequential pick ups and drop offs. A system for effecting an off loading and loading sequence of a truckload from and to a cargo space is needed to provide improved efficiency and time savings in the trucking industry.
As one example, of the need for improvements in the loading and unloading of trucks, the food industry, in particular, would benefit financially from greater efficiency in loading and unloading pallets with containers of fresh and/or frozen food products to and from the cargo spaces of trailers used by the trucking industry. A container identification is provided for each pallet having containers thereon. In a given month, if a given trailer truck could make even one additional round trip starting at the home base, with multiple pick-ups and drop-offs at various sites, and returning back to the home base, significant monetary savings would result. The present invention is intended to provide an apparatus and a system which results in a highly efficient loading and unloading of cargo spaces of various types of vehicles.
The trucking industry, as represented by the American Trucking Association, is considered a major beneficiary of the inventive apparatus and system to be hereinafter described. In addition to the trucking industry, the invention is intended to be widely used by retailers, wholesalers, exporters, hotel and restaurant businesses, various business organizations and associations, and package and grocery delivery businesses. The U.S. government and state governments could well benefit from the present invention.
Benefits for the over-the-road, regional and local LTL trucking industry include: (1) eliminating or minimizing the need to completely unload and reload each trailer at a dock in the cross docking process; (2) eliminating the need to remove pallets at the rear of a trailer which prevent the unloading of pallets further in. A warehouse or dock will charge at least $50.00 per pallet for the removal and reloading of such pallets; (3) minimizes problems and costs created by product refusals; and (4) enables taking on additional forward freight or backload freight on outbound trips.
Further, significant environmental savings may result from reduced fuel use (55 billion gallons of fuel are believed to be used annually by the trucking industry). This provides obvious environmental benefits.
Although the greatest beneficiaries of the present invention may be the trucking industry, the general concept provided by the invention may also be adapted for box trucks and vans engaged in the package and grocery delivery industries. In use by the package and grocery delivery industries, the inventive concepts remain substantially the same, although dimensional changes would be required.